Regional

6:45 pm

Fri January 8, 2010

Santa Teresa Gets Federal Money For Wind Tower Plant

Santa Teresa, NM – U.S. Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall today reported that two New Mexico clean energy manufacturing projects will receive a total of almost $5 million in tax credits as part of $2.3 billion in Recovery Act Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credits announced today by President Obama.

Johnson Plate & Tower Fabrication, Inc., of Santa Teresa, will receive a $2.3 million tax credit to establish and design a facility to manufacture commercial wind towers. The facility will produce property that, after further manufacturing, will become Specified Advanced Energy Property used in the production of energy from wind resources.

SUMCO Phoenix Corporation will reequip a currently idle manufacturing facility with tools and equipment to slice solar silicon blocks into solar silicon wafers, to be used by the Company's customers as components of solar modules that convert sunlight into electricity. The company expects this project to add approximately 35 new jobs to the Albuquerque, NM area.

The New Mexico projects are among 183 projects in 43 states that will create tens of thousands of high quality clean energy jobs and increase the domestic manufacturing of advanced clean energy technologies including solar, wind and efficiency and energy management technologies.

Bingaman, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, wrote the manufacturing tax credit provision into the Recovery Act and is working to expand the initiative this year. "New Mexico already has a clean energy manufacturing base and we are poised to be a national - and international - leader in this growing green jobs' sector," Bingaman said. "This investment will put New Mexicans to work and allow our state to gain an even stronger foothold in the creation of the jobs of the future."

"Our support of clean energy manufacturing projects like these will mean quality jobs for New Mexicans today, and a stronger, more competitive economy in the decades to come," Udall said.

As part of the Recovery Act, these tax credits are focused on putting Americans back to work by building a robust domestic manufacturing capacity to supply clean and renewable energy projects with American made parts and equipment.

This effort, along with other Recovery Act investments, will drive significant growth in the renewable energy and clean technology manufacturing sectors and give the United States the ability to lead globally in these markets. The investment tax credits, worth up to thirty percent of each planned project, will leverage private capital for a total investment of nearly $7.7 billion in high-tech manufacturing in the United States.